Stark grey limbs scrape the blue off the sky,
roots wedge under boulders. Half-dead, hollow,
bark raked thin. Small brown birds twitter and hop.
I turn away
seek a leafy oak, a burst of poppies, anything
but the ugliness, the dull dread this tree
stirs up. My urge to stride past so strong
I make myself look—
the potency of avoidance. This summer of George Floyd,
this summer I discover my ancestors were enslavers.
Every twig, every burl on this tree reveals itself:
a strip-tease of racism.
Listen to the faint thuds of its possum heart,
bow my forehead against the ridged trunk.
Fragrant, the slow decay.
If it were only wood,
not my decomposing hope, its smell of
wet dog, the last burnt leaf of fall. Carried by
rough gusts
dead-still at midnight.
Lightning only charred the tree.
Its husk taunts
sly victory.